Stability of a suspension bridge with a localized structural damping

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Strong vibrations can cause lots of damage to structures and break materials apart. The main reason for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse was the sudden transition from longitudinal to torsional oscillations caused by a resonance phenomenon. There exist evidences that several other bridges collapsed for the same reason. To overcome unwanted vibrations and prevent structures from resonating during earthquakes, winds, ..., features and modifications such as dampers are used to stabilize these bridges. In this work, we use a minimum amount of dissipation to establish exponential decay- rate estimates to the following nonlocal evolution equation</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'><disp-formula> <label/> <tex-math id="FE1"> \begin{document}$ u_{tt}(x,y,t)+\Delta^2 u(x,y,t) - \phi(u) u_{xx}- \left(\alpha(x, y) u_{xt}(x,y,t)\right)_x = 0, $\end{document} </tex-math></disp-formula></p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>which models the deformation of the deck of either a footbridge or a suspension bridge.</p>

Blow-Up Phenomena for Certain Nonlocal Evolution Equations and Systems

We provide sufficient conditions for the nonexistence of global positive solutions to the nonlocal evolution equationutt(x,t)=(J ∗ u-u)(x,t)+up(x,t), (x,t)∈RN×(0,∞),(u(x,0),ut(x,0))=(u0(x),u1(x)),x∈RN,whereJ:RN→R+,p>1, and(u0,u1)∈Lloc1(RN;R+)×Lloc1(RN;R+). Next, we deal with global nonexistence for certain nonlocal evolution systems. Our method of proof is based on a duality argument.

Modeling the Dynamic Failure of Railroad Tank Cars Using a Physically Motivated Internal State Variable Plasticity/Damage Nonlocal Model

We used a physically motivated internal state variable plasticity/damage model containing a mathematical length scale to idealize the material response in finite element simulations of a large-scale boundary value problem. The problem consists of a moving striker colliding against a stationary hazmat tank car. The motivations are (1) to reproduce with high fidelity finite deformation and temperature histories, damage, and high rate phenomena that may arise during the impact accident and (2) to address the material postbifurcation regime pathological mesh size issues. We introduce the mathematical length scale in the model by adopting a nonlocal evolution equation for the damage, as suggested by Pijaudier-Cabot and Bazant in the context of concrete. We implement this evolution equation into existing finite element subroutines of the plasticity/failure model. The results of the simulations, carried out with the aid of Abaqus/Explicit finite element code, show that the material model, accounting for temperature histories and nonlocal damage effects, satisfactorily predicts the damage progression during the tank car impact accident and significantly reduces the pathological mesh size effects.

Using Damage Delocalization to Model Localization Phenomena in Bammann-Chiesa-Johnson Metals

The Bammann, Chiesa, and Johnson (BCJ) material model predicts unlimited localization of strain and damage, resulting in a zero dissipation energy at failure. This difficulty resolves when the BCJ model is modified to incorporate a nonlocal evolution equation for the damage, as proposed by Pijaudier-Cabot and Bazant (1987, “Nonlocal Damage Theory,” ASCE J. Eng. Mech., 113, pp. 1512–1533.). In this work, we theoretically assess the ability of such a modified BCJ model to prevent unlimited localization of strain and damage. To that end, we investigate two localization problems in nonlocal BCJ metals: appearance of a spatial discontinuity of the velocity gradient in any finite, inhomogeneous body, and localization of the dissipation energy into finite bands. We show that in spite of the softening arising from the damage, no spatial discontinuity occurs in the velocity gradient. Also, we find that the dissipation energy is continuously distributed in nonlocal BCJ metals and therefore cannot localize into zones of vanishing volume. As a result, the appearance of any vanishing width adiabatic shear band is impossible in a nonlocal BCJ metal. Finally, we study the finite element (FE) solution of shear banding in a rectangular plate, deformed in plane strain tension and containing an imperfection, thereby illustrating the effects of imperfections and finite size on the localization of strain and damage.